By Asha Elmi - Reporter
Mogadishu, September 10, 2026 – Somalia’s government has limited growth in its civil service since taking office, with new recruitment based on the needs of government institutions, Finance Minister Bihi Iman Egeh said.
“We have not increased the government workforce since we came into office,” Egeh said in an interview with Miizaan Podcast, broadcast by Dawan Tv on Wednesday.
The minister said the government’s civil service workforce numbers about 10,000 to 11,000 employees, adding that the current administration had taken steps to prevent unnecessary expansion.
He said the Council of Ministers had issued decisions to control government recruitment because many state institutions already had enough employees.
“Since there are sufficient employees in government institutions, it should not be a matter of simply hiring someone. The need should create the job,” Egeh said.
He said new employees could still be recruited when there was a genuine need, such as when an employee leaves and a replacement is required.
But the government was not pursuing broad recruitment to increase the size of the civil service without a clear need, he said.
Egeh also discussed temporary government workers, saying most had been recruited under the previous administration and some had not gone through the normal civil service recruitment procedures.
The current government conducted an official census of temporary workers, collecting information on their education, positions and other employment details, he said.
The exercise also sought to verify employee and payroll records and prevent cases in which individuals received salaries under multiple names.
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“Those with errors in their records were removed,” Egeh said.
He said the temporary workers had been screened and their records verified, while decisions on whether they would be made permanent civil servants would depend on the ongoing civil service reform.
The reform is being led by the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, the Civil Service Commission and the Office of the Prime Minister, with the Ministry of Finance also involved, Egeh said.
The government is mapping the functions and responsibilities of state institutions to determine which jobs are actually required before deciding how many employees should be recruited, he said.
Under the new approach, government institutions would first define the positions and responsibilities they need, followed by job descriptions and the skills required for each position.
Existing employees would then be assessed to determine whether their skills and experience match the positions available, he said.
Egeh said the approach was intended to reverse a practice in which employees were sometimes recruited first and a job was subsequently created for them.
Previously, he said, the normal process of identifying the position, defining its responsibilities and determining the qualifications required for the job had not always been followed.
The ongoing reform aims to ensure that the government first identifies the number and type of jobs it needs, before determining how many employees should be recruited, Egeh said.